johndoeofkekistan Starts off on the wrong tone for a war movie. Cheesy acting. Boring movie. 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

Wuchak RELEASED IN 1968 and directed by Edward Dmytryk & Duilio Coletti, "Anzio" (aka "The Battle of Anzio") chronicles the uneventful Allied amphibious landing at Anzio, Italy, in late January, 1944. While a reconnaissance detail offers evidence that there's no serious enemy opposition in the 30 miles between Anzio and Rome, the commander (Arthur Kennedy) inexplicably decides to dig-in, which provides Field Marshal Kesselring (Wolfgang Preiss) the opportunity to marshal his troops against the invasion. This prolongs their capturing Rome until early June.Winston Churchill was dissatisfied with this, commenting "I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat into the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale." The movie focuses on a war correspondent (Robert Mitchum) who accompanies a small group of Rangers who patrol the Italian countryside and are ambushed at the Battle of Cisterna and try to make it back. The soldiers are played by Earl Holliman, Peter Falk, Reni Santoni, et. al.The movie's based on real events, but you can tell that the writers pandered to the audience in light of some of the contrived dialogues, e.g. General Lesley quoting Churchill at the end (Lesley, of course, representing the real-life General Lucas). Another negative is the incongruent soundtrack and score, most notably the opening song by Jack Jones, "The World is Yours." Yet it could be argued that this lends the movie a unique charm.Some armchair critics complain that the movie should have focused more on The Battle of Anzio, as far as the invading Allies fighting Kesselring's counterattack, but that's here to a point (since all the events fall under the umbrella of that battle) and I think they came up with an innovative way to condense 4.5 months into a fairly compelling two hour flick.THE MOVIE RUNS 117 minutes and was shot entirely in Italy (Naples, Caserta & Rome). WRITERS: H.A.L. Craig (et. al) from Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's book. ADDITIONAL CAST: Robert Ryan has a small role.GRADE: B-

rdolan9007 I will declare an interest at the outset because my late grandfather actually fought at the battle of Anzio(which he did survive. Therefore I was interested to see how the film dealt with Anzio. This unfortunately is a disappointing film, although not terrible by any means. It tries to be ambitious, with an anti-war stance but ends up as a strangely tame film to become a quite conventional heroic war movie. The film is not particularly realistic, and lacks a sense of danger. There are major characters killed of but you won't have any real feelings for them.This film is not helped by the fact it does suffers from the Hollywood(US) perspective. This largely ignores the British effort, and concentrates on the American action at Anzio. The film as a sop perhaps tries to compensate for this by heavily criticising the American generals. Although the British command made mistakes, in reality the American generalship was far worse and genuinely appalling The thinly disguised General Clark who is the character Gerneral Carson, was an egotistical moron, who threatened to shoot any British who arrived in Rome on the day 'he' conquered Rome. This unsurprisingly is not in the film, but you can certainly understand why Anzio was a near disaster, when you had idiots like that in charge.Strangely enough Anzio bears comparison to Saving Private Ryan in structure, both start with a beach landing although as the film does get right Anzio was unopposed unlike Utah beach. The film like Saving Private Ryan then concentrates on a section of American soldiers, and their actions. There is also like saving private Ryan an allied plane attack which at the end which plays an important role in the final outcome.The film unfortunately lacks the savage intensity of Anzio. The town of Anzio, and its surrounds was under constant and intense Artillery bombardment from the Germans. There was also constant pressure from German infantry and the conditions were reminiscent of the first world war. This state of affairs was to last in a very bloody stalemate for three months, before a breakout was achieved. You simply don't get any impression of that intense and constant pressure however being placed upon the allies from the film. There is none of the sense of fear and dread, that being confined to those few miles of land around Anzio actually had on the allies. Therefore the film ends up disappointingly conventional and ignores the reality of the conditions in Anzio.The acting is patchy, with only the characters playing the American generals and Kesselring really worthy of note. Peter Falk's performance as a playboy GI is out of kilter with the film. I like Peter Falk, but here his performance is ham-fisted, and unconvincing. Robert Mitchum is a good choice for the lead, and that face can do war weary better than most. Yet as Hollywood demands, despite being a cynical war journalist, he takes over the action and he gets to kill the last German sniper.So you won't get any insight worthy of note about Anzio from this film. It doesn't bother to try and create a realistic overview of what actually happened at Anzio. As this film was made in 1968, I'm not particularly surprised by the emphasis on the American war effort, therefore I'm not particularly upset by it. It bears so little reality to what Anzio must have been like that I can't judge it as a historical war film like the longest day, or a bridge to far. This is just a war film with a title that tries to lend it some historical credibility. It has little or none, so I would not take it seriously.There are it is true sporadic moments of interest and excitement, some of the battle scenes are well done, especially when some American units are ambushed by German tanks. The final action scene with the plane strafing the sniper and Robert mitchum trying to kill the sniper is well done as well. It isn't enough however dramatically, or historically accurate enough to sustain your interest.

bkoganbing When Winston Churchill was asked to appraise the Anzio operation he said that instead of hurling a wildcat on the beach and flanking the Germans the 36,000 allied troops at Anzio were nothing more than a stranded whale.Of course the whole Anzio landing was Churchill's own idea, but to give him some credit it was an attempt to try and break the logjam of the Italian offensive. The Allies had landed back in 1943 at Salerno and Churchill's 'soft underbelly of Europe' proved to be armor plated. Progress was measured in yards. It wasn't like the trench warfare of the first World War, but it was enormous American, British, Canadian and other assorted allies casualties.Anzio Beach was selected for a landing up the Italian coast near Rome to both outflank the Germans and maybe take Rome. It worked, but the American commander John P. Lucas moved too cautiously having remembered the 21 Day pitched battle at Salerno in those first landings in Italy. Field Marshal Kesselring was able to bring down reinforcements from the north and contain the Allies on that beach. There in fact they stayed until they linked up with the main offensive months later, just before the American Fifth Army liberated Rome officially on June 5, 1944.The story of the military failure of Anzio is told with fictional names as Robert Ryan, Arthur Kennedy, and Arthur Franz play Mark Clark, John Lucas, and Lucian Truscott respectively. Truscott is the guy who relieved Lucas and kept the Allies from being driven off the beach, although to be fair to Lucas his priority was a secure beachhead and he certainly succeeded.The other story of the film Anzio is that of Ernie Pyle like war correspondent Robert Mitchum who drives all the way to an unguarded Rome and then gets caught with a bunch of American GIs and one Canadian in trying to get back to Anzio beach.Earl Holliman, Reni Santoni, and Peter Falk play some of the soldiers with Mitchum and they do well. This is definitely not a war for glory for them, they're just trying to survive out there. Falk particularly is riveting in playing an American who was wounded and invalided out of the American army from the Pacific Theater who then moved to Canada to join their army. Why you would ask, because he's grown to like it and has a real jones for combat.Anzio unfortunately doesn't concentrate on either story long enough to tell it in the best possible way. It had potential to be a great film, but falls short. In addition Jack Jones's singing of the theme song is jarringly out of place. What I would like is someday for someone to tell the story of the original landings in Italy at Salerno, Messina, and Brindisi. That would make a great motion picture if done right. When you watch Anzio you are sad for the colossal waste of human life it was, especially since the objective wasn't obtained. And a great story needs better telling.